Rating: 
Summary: Good but quite annoying
Review: I have taken about 500 pictures so far in the last couple of months with the A70, my first digital camera. My review is strictly my opinion on using the A70, since I have never used any other brand, so I don't know if other may behave similarly or not.
First the good things: The A70 produces excellent color images, both on the monitor/tv or printed. It uses the least expensive memory card - compact flash. It uses the least expensive AA size batteries. (I bought 8 rechargeable ones, still very inexpensive compared to those batteries used in some very small tiny digital camera). Direct hookup to tv for viewing without the need of a dock.
Now the negatives: It bothers me very much that what you see in the viewfinder is not what you get. The little 1.5 inch screen seems to show what you will really get, but not the viewfinder. Under bright sunlight, the little screen is totally useless, you cannot see a thing. And since using the viewfinder does not correctly show you what you'll get, it's very frustrating to have to guess. Also because of the little screen becomes totally useless under bright sunlight, it is extremely hard to make any setting changes since settings are only displayed on the little screen, not through the viewfinder. For example, if you need to change from flash-on to flash-off under bright sunlight, good luck. The second annoying thing is the zoom control. It is almost impossible to zoom precisely. You'll go too far one way and when you zoom back, you'll go too far the other way. No precision control on the zooming mechanism. It is fine with casual snapshot type of pictures, but not when you want a little bit of artistic creation. Third annoying thing is the delay reaction on the shutter, which I have read on other brands also, so it is not a unique A70 issue, but that does not make it not annoying. Among the three, the third is the least annoying.
Rating:
Summary: It's OK
Review: This is an OK entry level digital camera. It's small and well built, not a cheesy piece of junk. When it manages to focus on the subject, it takes pretty decent photos. There lies the rub. The focusing system is worthless. It picks random points within the field of view to focus on and I have not found a way to make it consistantly focus on the center of the frame. The small lens picks up no light, so every indooor shot is a flash photo, which leads to red eye and flash bounce from everything. The time between finger press to shutter release in agonizingly long. Half the time, you'll move the camera thinking something is wrong just as it's releasing the shutter.If you can deal with these problems, then it's not a bad system. I would go the next level higher and get one that you can actually pick what gets focused on. My 2 cents.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice camera
Review: I have had this camera for about 3 weeks now and am very happy with it. The image quality is very good with good color and contrast and sharp images. They are not as good as my father's Canon Digital Rebel, but then his camera also cost 3 times as much. I have printed the photos on my Epson Stylus C84 (also available at Amazon, and highly recommended) and the results have been truly great. I got the printer because of the camera, and the 2 are a perfect team! It is a nice size to hold, not too big and not too small. The features are many and it has many manual controls, including flash level, focus, and many other things you would not expect on a camera like this. The only real feature that I have found sometimes not that great is the AiAf (artificial intelligence auto focus), sometimes it is not artificially intelligent but instead genuinely stupid. It is possibly to manualy control the focus on the camera though. Pros:
Good pictures
Lots of control when wanted
Lots of features
Solid build quality Cons:
AiAf can sometimes be just plain stupid
Rating:
Summary: Battery friendly
Review: I have had this A70 since Christmas 2003. All who see the finished pictures always ask how many pixels it is because of the extra fine quality. The battery life is absolutly unbelieveable for a Digital camera. I love the panoramic view photos which are very impresssive [and very easy to make].
The ability of conecting it to the TV and seeing the photos so big is a great big WOW! The setting for the best quality picture is 38, but the quality it produces is worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good overall but design and battery is a big problem
Review: Very good overall but design and battery is a big problem.Since Canon does not supply battery charger with the camera you have to pay 20 bucks more.And the camera is very battery consuming.But other features are good enough.It is worth buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome for beginners to advanced photographers
Review: This camera works great and has tons of modes. In auto mode all you need to do is press the shutter and you have an instant picture. Very high quality pictures with very little noise. This camera also includes a manual mode for the advanced users and people who want to learn it.
Rating:
Summary: Very Pleased
Review: I have been very pleased with the A70. I used to do a lot of photography in college, but afterwards found that without access to a darkroom, point-and-shoot (Rollei 35S) was the easy way to make photos. About three months ago, I made the switch to digital and decided to invest in a camera with the capability of manual controls. The learning curve for the A70 was not trivial, and it took awhile for what was obvious thirty years ago to come back. The biggest challenge has been focusing using the macro mode. In general, I find this camera a hoot and am enjoying photography again. I feel liberated by being able to pick the 10% of the photos that really stand out. The amount of info in the 3.2 meg image seems adequate for 4x6 or 8x10 prints. As I said in the title, I'm very pleased.
Rating:
Summary: Good picture quality, crooked optical viewfinder
Review: A good all-round digital camera, with nearly every conceivable feature. Initially I was attracted because the camera ran on AA cells; rechargeable AA's are cheap and plentiful, Alkalines are available everywhere, so if you charge fails you are not stuck. But LiIon batts are getting better and better. Can shoot over 50 pictures, 25 with flash on a set of 1800 mah NiMh's - that's the most I've shot. You will need to buy NiMh's and a charger, and schlep them around for travel. Not a problem if use if home-based. Consider carefully for int'l travel - cost of AA's vs a multi-voltage charger. For 3MP you will also need add'l CF cards - 16MB card supplied holds only 17 full-res pix. 256 MB card holds 271. Biggest disappintment has been very inacurate and crooked optical viewfinder - images have to be rotated 2 or 3 degess post-download. If you are looking for a camera with a good optical viewfidner do not buy this one.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: I waited for a while for this Camera to come down below $250.00 and I scored it for $220.00 or so here on Amazon and I couldn't be happier. Great print out quality at 8 x 10's shooting at the highest resolution and superfine quality. The video function is actually practically useable with a 512, 9mb write speed card. Sequence shots have been great with wakingboarding and skating. Can't wait to get the waterproof casing for it. Aluminum body is sturdy and ergonomic. Doesn't eat batteries. Get ya one!
Rating:
Summary: Nice quality, good price (I think)
Review: I'm new to digital cameras and I'm not even sure why I bought this one. I think I got one just to do it.
I'm not quite sure what to take pictures of yet, but what I have taken pictures of look very good. I don't have any other cameras to compare it to though. The images are good quality, but I wished it was even sharper than it is. When you look at the largest images (2048 x 1536) with a desktop resolution of 1280 x 960, the images are somewhat blurry when you zoom into the image 100%. It looks very good though. I took pictures of my backyard and I tested it's ability in low light. I took a picture of myself with me only being lit dimly by my computer screen and it showed up pretty well (I used the nighttime photo mode). And even if the image isn't bright enough or colored the way you want you could just edit them once you download them to your computer.
I was suprised with the quality of the video. It is very good looking, but at 640x480 it can only record for like fifteen seconds. I suppose I can make movies like Michael Bay though with thousands upon thousands of 5 second shots.
I researched different cameras and went to review sites with image quality tests and this one seems to have the best looking images for the cost. And it also seems to have the most features. The bottomline is that the images taken with this look great, the video feature looks great, lots of options to choose from and the camera itself is very sharp looking.
|
